Posts Tagged ‘Arbitration’

As I said in a previous blog, it’s not impossible to reform the government, but very unlikely. The parasites, the politicians and bureaucrats, who benefit from the current statist system, have a great stake in its continuance and expansion. They will strongly resist any reform.

There are ways, however, that we can bypass some of the burdens of government by employing competing free market substitutes. We might find enough support for freedom in Congress to prevent interference with the competing services. I’m thinking in terms of private schools, private arbitration courts, and private police,

Our justice system is very costly. Its only aim is to “bring the criminal to justice” with no attempt to bring justice to the victim. Arbitration courts are much cheaper. A victim would prefer arbitration, because he can claim compensation for his loss. A criminal might prefer arbitration because he can avoid imprisonment, and instead earn the money, to pay compensation to the victim, in relative freedom.

We already have private schools. We would have many more of them, and many more students attending private schools, if their parents were relieved of the tax burden of supporting public schools as well as paying tuition to private schools. Home schooling or private schooling would enable parents to choose the values to be taught to their children.

The chief obstacle to competition with government agencies and services is the inclination of government to claim or grant monopoly privilege. For many years private shipping companies have competed successfully with the US post office, with the single exception of letters. The post office survives today only by virtue of the remaining monopoly for delivering letters.

Perhaps you can think of other government functions that could be supplanted by private enterprise.